They are calling it Super September because so much is happening in Birmingham that month.

And the grand finale is the Birmingham Weekender, when the worlds of sport, shopping, arts, fashion and food collide for a massive event.

Birmingham’s largest arts festival takes place on September 25-27, a £1 million event offering world-class free outdoor entertainment.

It coincides with the opening of Grand Central, Birmingham hosting two Rugby World Cup matches and the return of the Style Live event.

Around 200 artists from 70 companies will take part.

Highlights include an orchestra of bell ringers playing high up above Centenary Square, which will also play host to a Mexican Day of the Dead party.

Coventry’s six metre tall Lady Godiva puppet will visit Birmingham for the first time, while CBSO will take up residence at the Mailbox and Birmingham Royal Ballet will perform an excerpt from Swan Lake in the Bullring.

Look out for roaming astronauts as Highly Sprung perform their street theatre and the Bicycle Ballet Company offers Strictly Night Cycling.

And the weekend kicks off on the Friday night with the premiere of Of Riders and Running Horses, a new dance work staged on the roof of a multi-storey car park.

The creative director of the Weekender is Roxana Silbert of Birmingham Rep, but she is working in collaboration with the 14 organisations in the Birmingham Arts Partnership.

They include the Hippodrome and Rep theatres, the mac, Drum, Ikon, Ex Cathedra choir, Town Hall Symphony Hall and Birmingham Opera Company.

Roxana said: “Performances will be spilling out of buildings on to the streets. You will not be able to walk through Birmingham without literally bumping into culture.

“And it will be every kind of culture you can think of, including opera, music, dance, circus and writing.

“Plus fabulous street food to keep everybody going.

“For me, this has bee a lesson in the incredible vibrancy that Birmingham has to offer.”

Highly Sprung's Urban Astronaut on the streets for launch of Birmingham Weekender

The Weekender will be twice as big in scope as the 4 Squares event of two years ago which saw almost 100,000 people flock to the city centre for free outdoor performances.

The same civic squares – Centenary, Victoria, Chamberlain and Oozells – will be used but the fun will also spread to the shopping centres.

The Bullring and Mailbox will play host to artists but this will also be the first open weekend of the £600 million Grand Central development – the transformed New Street Station with its new shops including John Lewis.

Villa Park is the venue for two Rugby World Cup matches, South Africa v Samoa on Super Saturday and Australia v Uruguay on Sunday September 27.

The Weekender is receiving £500,000 in funding, mainly from Birmingham City Council and Arts Council England, but there is at least as much again being invested in it by the organisations taking part.

Graham Callister, director of creative programmes at Birmingham Hippodrome, said: “We expect the festival to inject at least five times that amount into the city.

“We will be asking visitors what else they are spending money on to see the economic impact of the Weekender on Birmingham.

“With so many foreign rugby fans in town, this is an opportunity to showcase our city to a global audience.

“The Olympics brought sport and arts together and that’s what we will achieve with the Weekender.”